'Rampage' Jackson admits he expected UFC 144 loss but promises return

SAITAMA, Japan – Former UFC light heavyweight champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson (32-10 MMA, 7-4 UFC) dreamed of a return to Japan, but the result ended up as more of a nightmare in truth.

And following his decision loss to Ryan Bader (14-2 MMA, 7-2 UFC) at Sunday’s UFC 144 event in Saitama, Japan, Jackson admitted he wasn’t terribly surprised at the result.

“If I’m going to be critically honest, I’m not surprised that I lost the fight,” Jackson told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com).

Jackson’s troubles, of course, began far before he stepped into the cage with Bader. A knee injury suffered in training threatened his participation in the fight, though Jackson ultimately elected to carry on in hopes of putting in a crowd-pleasing performance in front of the same Japanese crowd that cheered him on during the glory days of his PRIDE run.

Despite committing to the fight, Jackson encountered problems during his weightcut and was only able to make it down to 211 pounds for the light heavyweight matchup.

“I almost didn’t make it to the fight, but I didn’t want to pull out for the Japanese fans,” Jackson said. “I injured my knee pretty bad, and my doctor told me not to fight. But it wasn’t real serious. I didn’t need surgery or nothing, but he told me it wasn’t a good idea to fight. I decided to fight anyway.”

Jackson looked tentative when the fight began, and he had trouble landing any significant blows on the feet. He had one vintage moment in the second round when he slammed Bader on his head and neck. However, Bader quickly bounced back and scored a slam of his own, and Jackson admitted he wilted after that turn of events.

“I re-injured the knee when Bader slammed me,” Jackson said. “It was one of those things. I was worried about it. Before the slam, I wasn’t doing a really good job. I was worried about it, and I had to lose a lot of weight since I couldn’t really run and stuff. It was downhill from there.

“I hurt my knee, and I just wanted to put on an exciting fight, and I was just happy to make it here and try and put on a show for the Japanese fans.”

With the result, Jackson has now suffered back-to-back defeats and isn’t in any real title contention. A potential rematch with Mauricio “Shogun” Rua still looms on the horizon, but there aren’t too many more obvious matchups in line.

Prior to the UFC 144 fight, many MMA fans and pundits speculated that it could potentially be Jackson’s final career outing. He’s admitted in the past he struggles to find motivation to train, and he’s also expressed his desire to hang up the gloves at age 35.

After Jackson’s UFC 144 performance, the talk quickly resurfaced, but the longtime veteran (currently 33 years old) said he was actually re-energized by what he saw in camp prior to the injury.

“I know I’m getting to the end of my career because I said I didn’t want to fight past 35,” Jackson said. “But honestly, before I hurt me knee, you guys should have seen the way that I was training. I’ve got really good sparring partners, and I’ve got this really good wrestler names Tyson Jeffries that kicks my butt, and in this camp, I was kicking his butt. I was taking him down and wrestling got real competitive. That’s how I hurt me knee because he’s one of the best wrestlers I know.

“I was sparring really good, and I was looking like a superstar, then I hurt me knee. That made me think, ‘Oh, man, I’ve got a lot more time to fight.’ When I got hurt, it was just unfortunate, but now, I know what I can do if I come in 100 percent.”

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